{"id":4694,"date":"2018-09-21T05:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4694"},"modified":"2018-09-16T08:16:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T15:16:39","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-chapter-5-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/09\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-chapter-5-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld&#8217;: Chapter 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth chapter of <i>The Science of Discworld II<\/i>, Rincewind and Ponder find the other wizards exactly where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d find them in a place like this. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Discworld<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Okay, so I am SUPER INTO THIS. I think there are a decent number of clues to figure out what place and time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in for this part of the story, and I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna try to do that right now. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit at the start of this where Hex insists that the best way for the Librarian to hide in plain sight is to dress him up like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spanish. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m less interested in the joke than this part:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And people there look like him?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No. But people here would be quite prepared to believe so. This is a credulous age.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, Pratchett establishes that the elves have done <i>something<\/i> to humanity that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s caused them to believe in things that simply do not exist. But I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clue here that has less to do with the elves and more with the historical period. We know that this is in England since Mortlake is a real place, which I believe is outside London? Like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to the west, if I remember correctly? If that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case, then there were specific moments in history in which the British and Spanish were, so to speak, not on great terms.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Then, the wizards are located outside a tavern (of course they are), where Ridcully is literally fighting someone with his staff (because of course he is) and winning (did anyone doubt that). Two weeks have passed, and in that time, the wizards made a friend!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dee here is a sort of local wizard,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ridcully, in the loud voice he thought was a confidential whisper. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sharp as a tack, mind like a razor, but spends all his spare time trying to do magic!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, I thought the name sounded a little too on-the-nose, but I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure if Pratchett was going to use real historical figures, but this <i>has<\/i> to be John Dee, right??? If the great thinkers of the time believed in magic and developed all sorts of theories on how the world worked, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this be exactly who this is describing? Which would set this time period as\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. later 1500s??? Look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a while since I learned about UK\/European history (I took AP Euro in high school and spent lots of time focusing on it when I was still in the political studies department), but this part would be applicable too:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Confusion is the natural state of mind here, believe us. Do you know they think numbers are magical? Doing sums can get a man into real trouble in these parts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so clever, too, that the wizards think that our world is a <i>parody<\/i> of their world. Viewed in this light, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly that strange of an idea. The Discworld has rules and patterns to it, and Roundworld appears to subvert and confuse <i>all<\/i> of them. We used to believe so fiercely in things that did not exist. (We still <i>currently<\/i> do.) Civilizations died out. Information was wiped away. Humans progressed\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsome cultures much faster than others\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand then we moved backwards at alarming rates, only to progress further again. So, Rincewind has an important point about the role the wizards are to play: <i>Should<\/i> they interfere? In many ways, their presence affected the evolution of the animals in Roundworld, but this is so different. Humans are a unique creature in the universe, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably why the elves have singled them out. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something the humans have that they want. (Imagination? A specific kind of consciousness?) So, can the wizards ethically intervene to stop the intervention of the elves? They might have to, if in a thousand years\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 time, humans find a way to leave Earth. Will the elves change history or the future?<\/p>\n<p>I AM SUPER READY FOR MORE, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/nObhBhuM7f8<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/AngerIsAGift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth chapter of The Science of Discworld II, Rincewind and Ponder find the other wizards exactly where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d find them in a place like this. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,552],"class_list":["post-4694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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